1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to systems and methods, including computer systems and methods, for conducting jury research. More specifically, the present invention relates to systems and methods for determining accurate estimates of damages, especially punitive damages, in bifurcated cases. The invention also relates to training jury consultants and researchers in how to assemble research juries for hearing bifurcated punitive damages cases so as to produce more accurate damages estimates.
2. Description of Related Art
Over the years, jury consultants have played an increasingly important role in developing strategies and tactics for both civil and criminal litigations. Speaking generally, jury consultants assist attorneys by identifying and applying information concerning the beliefs, attitudes and characteristics of potential jurors. Conventional services provided by jury consultants include focus groups, mock trials, opening statement consultations, community attitude surveys, graphics support, witness assessment preparation and the like. In essence, the jury consultant serves as an interface between the attorney and the jury pool, assisting the attorney by making recommendations for communicating his case in a persuasive and effective manner.
Conventional methods employed by jury consultants tend to focus on strategy development, and statistical analyses that attempt to model plaintiff and defense juror types. For example, in a conventional mock trial exercise, the jury consultant attempts to construct a jury that is a random and representative sample of the overall jury pool in the relevant area (a “representative jury”). The construction of such a representative jury often begins with a telephone survey, in which a statistically significant sample of the community in which the case is to be tried is questioned, to determine its attitude patterns and demographic make-up. Depending on the specific nature of the case, the survey may focus on a variety of factors, including marital status, occupation, membership in community groups and the like, as well as other factors more specifically related to the particular case. The jury consultant then makes an effort to construct a representative jury that mirrors that community's profile.
A mock trial may then be conducted before the representative jury, in which both the plaintiff's (or prosecutor's) and defendant's sides of the case are presented. Following the mock trial, the representative jury deliberates and renders a verdict. In civil litigation involving punitive damages, the jury also deliberates and renders a decision on the amount of the damage award. Each member of the representative jury is then polled and interviewed, to elicit his or her reactions to what was presented. The jury consultant compiles and analyzes the data from such interviews and makes recommendations to the attorney concerning the manner in which the case may be most effectively presented. Data concerning biases and characteristics of jurors that may help or hurt the case is also analyzed.
Over the long run, the statistical data obtained using the representative jury approach described above may prove useful, and conventional jury research has in fact provided valuable and necessary services to attorneys trying cases. However, even the strongest correlation between jurors' decision making and various aspects of their background, attitudes and experiences provides nothing more than probabilities, and falls short when tested against the complexity of actual litigation. This drawback is even more acute when one considers that it is individuals who do not think like everyone else, and therefore do not conform to the probability data, who tend to become leaders in jury deliberations.
The shortcomings of these conventional mock trial practices are particularly acute for jury research relating to civil litigation with bifurcated punitive damages proceedings. At an actual trial, the jury initially hears only the liability evidence and deliberates only the liability issues. If the jury returns a liability finding along with a finding that the plaintiff is entitled to punitive damages, then the jurors are presented with punitive damage evidence, after which they return to the jury room for deliberations on the amount of punitive damages that should be awarded. Conventional jury research methodologies in such cases have limited validity, because they do not take into account the effect of the jury deliberations that led to the liability verdict on individual jurors or on the nature and dynamic of the group. This generally is not a problem in unitary cases in which jurors hear liability and punitive damage evidence at the same time and then deliberate all the issues simultaneously. In bifurcated cases, however, this is a substantial drawback, because, jurors form perception-changing coalitions and develop antagonisms during liability deliberations that affect what happens in the punitive damages phase of the trial.
Jury researchers have approached this problem by either ignoring the bifurcation and designing the jury research as if the case was going to be tried in a unitary manner or by asking mock jurors to assume a liability finding and hear only a punitive damage case. However, liability deliberations in unitary cases are very different than bifurcated cases, because plaintiff and defense jurors can, among other things, negotiate an agreement that involves accepting liability in return for no punitive damages. This end game strategy in deliberations is not available to jurors in bifurcated cases. The group dynamic in unitary cases is also different than bifurcated cases, as the jury hears all the evidence related to the defendant's bad conduct before it has found the defendant liable, which may increase the chances for a liability finding. Likewise, simply asking jurors to assume a finding of liability and to decide the punitive damages issue based on that assumption ignores the inability of the average juror to create such a mindset. Clearly it is difficult, if not impossible, for the average juror to mentally create a unique experience he or she has not had, and then react to it as though it had actually occurred. Thus, neither of these methods captures the essence of the cognitive process by which juries award punitive damages and are therefore likely to produce unreliable and inaccurate findings.
There is a need, therefore, for systems and methods that provide valid and reliable findings from jury research on punitive damages in bifurcated cases by taking the entire process the jury goes through into account, including the formation of perceptions, coalitions and antagonisms that develop during liability deliberations.